Cell phones on boats
 

1.) Any models or services seem to offer greater coverage offshore for a few miles in Michigan or Florida?

2.) Are any of the prepaid phones like you get at Target a good deal for TEENS etc or better with a regular account cost wise?

3.) Cingular is not working for me coverage or expense wise...who has the best value....decent cost and good service too..??

Thanks!

Trying to drop AT&T today after 3.5 very long expensive crappy years of bad service (Glutten for pinishment). I did some research and am going to T-mobile this evening. Friends have been very happy and the prices are right. Plus, with free phones, they are disposable. I already have 3 phones at the bottom of the pacific!

AT&T was the worst cell phone service I ever had :mad:

The best overall coverage in MI is Verizon... Not the cheapest but works just about everywhere.

1) what great lake in michigan do you use most? i am with Altell and could not be happier. i seem to have good coverage pretty much any where i am at on the lake (western lake erie)

2) probably the best deal for teens is one of those Criket phones but coverage is limited to home area only.

3) i went to Alltel a few years ago and have had the best service and coverage of any phone i have had. i travel frequently and have a plan that works well. no roaming no long dist. and very resonable base bill rate. the phone service itself is great. never lose calls and customer service is good too.

KUDOS to that. I travel A Lot (sitting in the Detroit Airport typing this). By far I have had excellent service with Alltel and I am all over the US and Canada. The only place I found Alltel not to work so far was Northern Cali (Eureka-Scotia area) but hell nothing works there unless its from there...and a lot of things from there don't work :p

Man these are some loaded questions. :D I work for Cingular, not in sales or billing, customer service, etc... so dont ask me :D :D There is a difference in the models of phones. The price has NO impact on the performace either. Some of the most expensive phones we carry are the biggest POS's also. The basic rule I tell people is the smaller the phone is, the poorer it will perform. Basic reason is there is less transmit power availible.

The service is all dependent on the area in which you live. Here in central and south FL I do believe we have the best coverage(I was a customer long before I worked here).. In other parts of the country I know we are not the best.

The prepaid phones you see are just reselling some carriers service as their wn for the most part. Cricket and a few others do have their own networks but as someone said, they only work in their "home area". Virgin mobile for example is T mobile that is repackaged.

OK I said enought I think :D Me go now...

I use AT&T now too and I think it stinks, I have also heard nothing but good things about Alltel. hey will be my next carrier for sure.

Roby

"Trying to drop AT&T today after 3.5 very long expensive crappy years of bad service"

"AT&T was the worst cell phone service I ever had"

"I use AT&T now too and I think it stinks"



Too bad.
I've had them for 8 years with no complaints.
Excellent service, customer service, plans, and coverage.

All cell phone have the same output power (FCC regulations). The limiting factor is distance to nearest cell tower and ambient conditions.
If you need genuine offshore telephone communications look into a sat phone ($$$$$).

I'm a converted Verizon user. Like many already said, I had AT&T, service was lousy in my local area, but had the nationwide plan.

My wife talked me into VErizon family plan. Kids got free phones and all the calls within the family on the cells are free, all day everyday, that was half my cell bill.

I can't believe I'm saying it, but VErizon was definately a good move.

I use Nextel . The Direct connect works great for our drivers and the cel phone is pretty decent. Ive been with them for about 4 years now when I signed up the cell was crap but it is a lot better now. dont have any problems now with service:)

"offshore in Michigan" is different from
"offshore in Florida".

You'll get passable coverage on the lakes in Michigan, except for at the center of the lakes in rougher water conditions. In those cases, a cheap external antenna will help a great deal.

Offshore in Florida is "one sided" and you have reasonable ability to use your phone up to around 4 miles out. A big long (6' or 8') marine Cell antenna will extend that to around 12 miles (although I've gotten a good signal at 15 miles with an antenna tip height of 23').

If you are curious about your area there is a lot of good info at www.howardforums.com . Check out there users online-makes OSO a little puny by comparison. OTOH there only seem to be about 6 knowledgeable people on any of the forum threads:rolleyes:

just switched from nextel to tmobile. tmobile is much cheaper and so is there coverage. i havent been impressed so far.

Can You Hear Me Now???

:D :D :D

I just had to say it.

LPA...not that you don't already have a ton of info but..

I swapped from Sprint to Verizon. JB and I are often in remote areas with boating and snowmobiling and think it's imperative to have a decent signal in case of trouble. Our Verizon works d@mn near everywhere.

On the teen thing. I would truly hesitate to get them their own phone UNLESS it was one with a phone card (like at Target or WalMart). The kids have no concept of time and the "cool" parents that run out and get them a normal phone aren't feeling so cool anymore when they give their fifth $300 bill for one month of service. At least with the phone card one, they have to budget their talk time and it's in their face right away if they screw up...instead of a huge bill a month later. Just my $.02.

Bonnie, Ryan Newman wants your number. I think he's going to sell you on Alltel plan.

:D Roby

Well....he better bring all the equipment and accessories for me to check out thoroughly. It's a hard choice for me....I'll have to use it all over the place to see if it's all they say it is. :D

I've had verizon for 8 or 9 years now and I'm very happy with it. I don't travel a lot but when i do it always works on land and on the water (western lake erie). I almost switched to nextel because i have a lot of friends that work construction and they all have nextel's with the 2-way feature which i would like to have. But every time we go to northern michigan or get away from the main highways or large cities (out on the water) they lose the signal and my phone always works. Here's their coverage for their americas choice plans. Oh, and it's always worked in canada too, i just have to pay roaming but that's better than not having a phone.

Alltel and verizon use "roaming agreements" so that each other can use their service but only on the PCS system, so if you get into an old service area without alot of subcribers your roaming may be SOL.
Alltel bought out century tel in mich, and century tel used a TDMA service. Verzen uses CDMA and is not compatible with alltel so the roaming in northern mich. sucks with verizon. So it really depends on how much time you spend in northern mi, ludington and farther north is "alltel country" and muskegon south is verizon rich.
Pre-paid for teens is the only route to go. It gets them to do something for their minutes, like get off their ass and do their chores for cash to buy more minutes. Page Plus pre-paid is the best for mi. and florida. .25 per min free long distance, caller id and roaming.It uses verizons towers.You buy them the phone so that the first time their out of minutes when you call you can threaten to take the damn thing away!

You guys will love this.
I went to drop my AT&T service yesterday.
They said I have to pay a $175.00 early termination fee. I explained that I was dropping them because my phone face now reads Cingullar and I do not get service. The Supervisor explained to me that "AT&T does not have to provide service...Its in your contract"
Let me get this straight. I pay (Don't fall off you chairs) $285.00 per month to AT&T for what? I thought this whole time it was for service. Now I find out they are not actually obligated to provide "Service" WTF???

I have to get into the cellphone business!

I ended up dropping my plan down to $19.99 per month for the remaining 5 months. I will just leave a voicemail stating my new number and that AT&T is a scam. Everyone who calls will be a bit more informed. Maybe they should have let me out of my policy.

Other AT&T Highlights:
They sent me 8 (Yes 8) phones trying to figure out why my phone would not work in my area (I live in Orange County kids, we are born with cell phones hooked to our heads out here).
They tell me "Find one that works and send the rest back".
OK, fair enough. Then they bill me $1850.00 on my next bill for the phones and one month of service. So I pay for the month and the one phone I kept and sent the others back. They said it take 2 months for the returns to go back in there system and cut off my service until I paid. So, I paid. Wouldn't you know it, I only got credit for sending 6 phones back.

I am AT&T's unpaid research and development dept.

I use my phone a lot 2,500 min a month:eek: I travel all of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. The only phone I have ever used that covered all of the areas believe it or not is Nextel. The only service I have ever found with unlimited any time minutes is Nextel (Grandfathered in @$149.00 per Month). The kids use Cricket unlimited at around $35.00 per month.
The two-way works out great for us, most of the dock hands have it and makes it easy coming in to find out what side of the boat to start prepping first.
This works out great for us but may suck in other areas for others, since we seem to boat in the same waters hope this helps.

BTW don't you need a boat first before you can use a phone on it:confused:
Sorry someone had to say it:p

Unfortunately AT&T was bought out by Cingular. :hothead:
Is this happening in your home area or while traveling?
I get service changes while traveling (roaming). Each company (be it AT&T, Cingular, Verizon, etc.) have agreements on sharing antenna usage. If AT&T doesn't have or provide coverage in a particular sector your call or service will be picked up by someone else.

you might need to check it out. usually when you change plans it renews your contract for another year. when you call and *****, they say "its in your contract" happened many times on our nextels

one time they added nationwide direct connect. when i called told them i didnt order it and to cancel it, they said that was renewing my contract for another year:hothead:

unfortunatly? :confused:
Actually it is a good thing. There where to many players in the field, someone was going down. There is still talk about another carrier going away. The fit with Cingular and AT&T was the best. The networks are basially the same, the frequencys they own are pretty much the same, etc. What it will do is make the largest footprint under one company throughout the US. AT&T was preping themselves for a purchase for a few months now. If you look at their stock prices it has gone down ever since the IPO. They where hurting, and like any other company that is not doing well financially, they will either go bankrupt or get bought out.

Rumors around here are that Cingular is going to acquire T-Mobile.

I LOVE AT&T :woohoo:

Cingular was looking at aquireing T mobile as well, but their parent company does not want to sell. Also the fact that they just put a bid in fot AT&T for 41billion dollars. In fact Tmobile is looking to grow also and may look at buying another carrier.

What ever phone you use get a dual band antena on your vhf radio............then get a pig tail that plugs into your phone antena. They claim boosting reception 30 miles. I am going to try it one of these days. I use nextel and have had most others and will stay with nextel.